Category: infertility

A couple years ago I stopped taking monthly home pregnancy tests. Stay at this game long enough and you’ll longer need them. My BBT alone tells whether I’m pregnant: if my temp starts dropping around 10DPO, then it’s certain I’m out that month. My last two pregnancies taught me that my temp skyrockets when I’m pregnant, even immediately post-transfer.

This past cycle my period was late. I rarely have late periods—my body’s great at cycling like it should. A cautious hope with a type of nervous expectancy for a BFP began to set in. After all, starting 11DPO I’d been having strange poking pains in my lower right uterus which were so weird because—since I’ve no ovary on that side—it rarely sees any action. But, my temp began dropping on CD24 and hope remained dangling on the edge of caution.

I fleetingly thought about taking a HPT from my arsenal, but—honestly?—I just couldn’t be bothered. I couldn’t be bothered to continue tracking my symptoms, either. I eventually forgot what cycle day I was on.

Ambivalent was the best word for my feelings on the matter. Ambivalence causes me to think I don’t want this as much as I used to. It causes me to wonder if I’ve become a resigned, faithless, half-hearted TTC-er.

On the same morning when my period app reminded me that I was three days late, I finally took a HPT. It was negative. And I mean negative just like that cutesy “BFN” acronym—a big. fat. negative. I felt nonplussed by my results. And as I’ve done many times over the years, after thoroughly scrutinizing for a squinter, I chucked the test in all its stark white one line-ness into the trash and got up to go about my day. Scratch off another monthand move along, I valiantly told myself, intending to go about my day business as usual.

A mere half hour later, where did my so-called valiant “strength” land me? Why, sobbing to Jake on the sofa while cramps overtook my body and the beginning of my period approached! Through big ugly tears and out of my desperation, I devised implausible ways to pay for another IVF. I lamented my fate as permanently childless. I gave voice to the feelings of failure, the tediousness of endless TTC, and the general hopelessness that is constantly trying to get the better of me. The battle is real; so is the enemy.

Here I’d been moments before thinking I was so tough and had become ambivalent—also known as hardened—to this years’ long process. Turns out, I’m still all mushy in the middle. Most months I don’t allow myself to feel the feelings. But they’re all still there: faith and hope mixed with failure and tears. Gratitude mixed with feelings of unfairness. Impatience mixed with patience.

All this from a late period. I’m grateful to learn that I still have an emotional connection to this process, to know that I’m not hardened by it as I’d secretly feared. Sometimes this Tin Man just needs a little oil now and then to know for certain.

**originally posted on December 15, reposting today because, well, 2017’s end is imminently looming. Praise God for a new year!**

Somehow—in a blur of time and events and dates—another year is quickly drawing to an end. I’m kind of stunned to find myself writing about 2017 ending, and so soon it seems! And I’m kind of [read: very] disappointed to find myself still blogging about fertility stuff as we move into another year. Even so, I’m immensely grateful for God’s goodness and protection during this year. Fertility issues are just one part of the whole of my life.

So for those and myriad other reasons I can’t write here, I’m okay and moving still toward a deeper peace. I continue to have moments of anger, frustration, and sadness about our inability to conceive. Some days I can’t sense the light; I can’t see how this infertility will ever resolve; I feel my faith weaken. But, overall, I am sustained by God’s peace and a strong sense to continue to wait patiently… although I’m notoriously impatient. Character is being built here. The process is uncomfortable.

As I look back over the year, here are the highlights of 2017 when it comes to our TTC sojourn, good and bad:

SUCCESS: A successful laparoscopy in March that opened my Fallopian tube and cleared away lots of adhesions.

FAIL: Why, in my mid-30s, do I still have monstrously painful periods? I thought that period pain decreased with age? (Actually, when I think back to my teen years and early 20s, my current period pain looks like a walk in the park.) I still have to take prescription painkillers and spend a day or two in bed each month. So, this mini-rant counts as a fail.

FAIL: Perhaps the biggest fail of them all: still not pregnant. Yeah…

Our 2018 fertility plans remain open-ended. Jake and I are in preliminary talks about going another round with IVF. I’m quasi open to it; he’s much more cautious. We totally cannot afford IVF and if we do decide to do it, I’ve no idea where the funds will come from. Like I said, it’s preliminary.

I’m in the process of changing my health insurance over to Jake’s plan. I found a clinic that—believe this?—SPECIALIZES IN ENDOMETRIOSIS (huzzah!). And when I say specializes in, I mean that endometriosis is ALL THEY DO, all day. The entire office is dedicated to patients suffering from endo. Once my insurance has been squared away, I plan to make an appointment. I so need a doctor who will actually help me, and I’m hopeful that this place will be the answer. It’s an hour away and 90% of the drive involves major congested roads but I don’t even [mostly] care.

Even though it’s two-odd weeks til the new year, I’m pleased to see 2017 on its way out. Never liked the odd numbered years as much for some reason. I’m ever hopeful that 2018 will usher in new beginnings in our fertility sojourn.

… of the month: ovulation day! ** Obviously. It’s way too soon for The Most Wonderful Time of the Year, although the stores don’t seem to know that and are already peddling their holiday wares. Sending a shout out to this all-important monthly milestone and the many accouterments that go along with. There’s a lot of bad in the world these days. Why not celebrate the little things?

Women (i.e., me) with one ovary really do ovulate every month! Like a person with one kidney, as soon as an ovary is removed the remaining ovary takes over the work of both. I’m amazed how God saw to it to design the human body with these capabilities. While it might be overtaxing to my lone ovary to be doing all the egg releasing itself during these last 13 years, I’m just grateful it’s still doing its job.

Here’s what a typical month looks like for me at ovulation, in pictures:

One of my most-used apps. The shooting uterine pains I could’ve done without though.

Baby making makes you good at math.Recently added to my fertility routine. I recommend consuming by disguising them in smoothies (wheatgrass) or stirred into coffee or chai tea (maca), because these supplements taste pretty nasty on their own.Fortunately, bromelain and selenium come wrapped up in foods that actually taste good! Here’s my monthly pineapple purchase, accompanied by a handful of Brazil nuts.The battalion of my supplement army, lined up and ready for battleTrust, but verify.

Let another two week wait begin.

Peace. ❤

** The most wonderful day of the month actually occurred 4 days ago. I delayed publishing this because it seemed too trite to post during either the hurricane or on the anniversary of 9/11.

My initial reaction when reading that Kate Middleton is pregnant yet again? Jealousy. Not a pretty thing to admit… but let’s be real. After all, she’s managed to have/is having three babies in the span I’ve been trying for just one. It’s like a special little punch every 1.5 years or so when she has another baby/pregnancy and the media ogles over every.single.detail, ad nauseum.

This world is an unfair place. The sun shines and the rain falls on us all: the fertile and the infertile, the royal and the average, the easy pregnancies and the ones borne of needles and clinics and dwindling embryo counts.

Once I got that ugly part of my humanity out of the way, I began thinking how being pregnant can be hard. I found myself even feeling sorry for Kate! Now I don’t follow celebrity news, but I don’t live completely under a rock either: I know that she’s suffered with extra crazy bad morning sickness during her pregnancies. And I’m sympathetic. Remembering back to my own short-lived pregnancies and how physically ill I felt, I can’t imagine enduring that feeling on a larger scale for a much longer duration. It can’t be fun, no matter how easily conception happened.

I’ve also read some very unkind comments on here from my fellow IF community about royal pregnancy #3. I completely get the sting, because I felt it too: it’s like a regular painful pregnancy announcement, except on crack. But it makes me sad to read such harsh posts from others who’ve walked the hard roads of IF treatment and difficult pregnancies themselves.

I totally agree that it’s “unfair” how she gets yet another one. Life is unfair, God certainly promises us that. It’s full of ugliness, full of perplexity, full of opportunities to be resentful. So to extend congratulations to someone for her “easy” pregnancy—royal or otherwise—seems like the right way for those of us suffering with infertility to push back just a little. To resolve kindness in place of inequity, even when it stings.

This isn’t some misplaced chastisement for the real pain that this overblown pregnancy announcement can have on us. All I know is that, since all this infertility business started in my own life, I’ve handled waaaaay more than my fair share of pregnancy announcments badly: I’ve been jealous, envious, angry, bitter, and probably some other unlikeable adjectives. But looking back, I can see that secretly harboring those reactions and feelings got me nowhere. In fact, carrying such negative weights actually made the fight harder than it already was (well, is).

Six years into this thing and I don’t want to live that way anymore. That choice is mine: it’s one of the few choices I get to make when it comes to babies and pregnancies and how I’m going to walk out this sojourn.

Oops… was my last post seriously back in March? I took a much-needed hiatus from the infertility blog world, which was kind of refreshing actually. And who knows? I just might take another one immediately after this post! Fertility’s just hasn’t been on my mind lately.

Not only have I stepped away from the blog, but I’ve also bid adieu to daily basal body temping, raspberry leaf tea, ovulation prediction kits, timed intercourse, avoiding alcohol and caffeine, and all the other crap that comes along with TTC. And you know what? I don’t even miss it. I like feeling normal again. Living life.

We have now officially reached the 6-year TTC mark and I’m tired: tired of the stress, the all-consuming-ness of it all, the fact that it’s been on my mind way too much than is healthy.

Since I’m here and all though, here’s the scant highlights since my last post:

My yearly gynecology appointment showed questionable lumps in each breast. My doc sent me for a mammogram, which was fortunately clear. For the record, mammograms (this was my first) are not as painful as the interwebs allege. And this coming from a chick with the lowest pain threshold in the universe. *breathes sigh of relief*

I turned 35. My period came on the day of my 35th birthday, which was either a real kick in the teeth or just a failed scare tactic to mess with my head. Anyway, I guess I’m now officially “old” when it comes to fertility stuff. Whatever.

Cervical cauterization. My cervix is quite shiny these days! I’ve started treating with a new gyn (this makes like the 20th gyn I’ve seen: no exaggeration) who recommended having my cervix cauterized with silver nitrate. Silver nitrate—picture that black stuff boxers use on their face to seal up cuts in the ring—should stop my ongoing mystery intermenstrual bleeding. With nothing to lose, I had my cervical cauterization procedure done this week. It was uncomfortable, similar to an extended PAP smear, but, like the mammogram, not nearly as painful as the Internet warned. The only side effect I had was grayish spotting and cramps for the rest of the procedure day. Silver nitrate acts as a seal for the cervix’s tiny blood vessels, which is supposed to prevent blood (except menstrual blood) from seeping through. Sperms still makes it through I’m told. Sometimes it can take two or three treatments to be effective. Results to follow if it will stop the bleeding.

Back in 2011 when Jake and I were all, “Let’s have a baby!” we naively figured we’d be pregnant by the end of the summer. I had no inkling that we’d still be sojourning toward that same goal six years later. We knew back then that I had endometriosis. We knew I had only one ovary. We knew it might take a few months longer than most people. But we never in our wildest dreams imagined that 72 months later we’d still be trying.

So be it. It’s in God’s hands now. It always has been. I’ve not gone down without a fight—I’ve not even really “gone down” at all—but I’m done with the weird supplements and teas and stick peeing and other fruitless endeavors toward something I’ve literally no control over. I continue on with hope—expectation even—but choose to live and enjoy my life as a normal person in the meantime, whatever the outcome may be.

Whaaaaa? How has it already been two years?! Wow: time has flown. I wouldn’t have even known about this anniversary unless WordPress hadn’t sent me this the other day:

In hindsight, I wish I’d started this blog two years before I did. I had no clue that there was a niche forum for fertility bloggers… or that anyone even blogged about this kind of very personal topic at all.

Starting this blog in 2015 came at the end of an informal six-month deadline I’d given myself. We’d already been TTC for several years, but I’d told myself back in September 2014 that—if we weren’t pregnant in six months—then I’d go back to see a new reproductive endocrinologist. I’d just have a quick tune-up surgery for me and some testing done for Jake. Presto chango, we’d be all set to go, right? How I wish it’d been that simple.

When I began blogging here, I’d just scheduled a consultation with an RE, the ill-advised Dr. B who I eventually fired. I was choosing to reopen the door to reproductive medical intervention. Until that time I’d only had an antral follicle count and several surgeries, after which my docs would give me windows of either six months or a year to get pregnant naturally (maybe ‘naturally’ isn’t the best choice of words, and I hope no one takes that the wrong way). When I began this blog, three years had passed since my last operation, much longer than the little sliver of time promised after surgery.

I never imagined that infertility would lead me down the road that it has, though God has laid a path for me that I would not have chosen to walk myself. I feel humbled by this road, as it has given me greater empathy and compassion for women facing this struggle and caused me to seek deeper into my faith.

On a lighter note, this infertility sojourn has also taught me a whole new language to decipher—all in acronyms nonetheless!—which I kind of like to think that I’ve mastered by now. Conquering that makes me feel all medical-like, like I can read message boards and blog posts without having to refer back to a list of acronyms to know what it was that I’d just read.

My endeavor lately has been to thank God in all circumstances…. including and especially infertility. Among other things, had it not been for infertility and this blog, then I wouldn’t have been able to connect with such amazing women all around the globe over a common goal. I wouldn’t have borne witness to so many of your miracles and triumphs, or been able to pray for you in your times of waiting , or lent a shoulder to cry on during the tough times. I feel privileged to have met so many genuinely wonderful ladies through this medium who are sojourning through the same battlefield.

Next year though? Next year when WordPress sends my three-year achievement, I plan to be blogging about my pregnancy or sharing the birth story of my baby, and to give God all the glory for it.

And even if my time still hasn’t come by then, I’d like to stay awhile and read about yours.

In only a few short weeks I’ll be turning 35. In defiance of this age that’s so crucial to the fertility-challenged, I’d started drafting a post all about how 35 could bring its bad self on, how some obscure number wouldn’t suddenly make my eggs all like, “Oh snap, we’re expiring soon!”, etc. I was all set to publish my post too.

But then, a trigger.

While sitting in church on Sunday morning our pastor invited a couple to come up front with their baby for the baby’s dedication. *Insert gigantic GULP here.* I was caught totally off guard that there’d be a baby dedication that day. If I’d known, I probably would have come in late.

I felt a swarm of conflicting emotions. On one hand, I was happy for this couple. But I was also envious of them. I felt sad for myself… then guilty for entertaining a pity party, especially in church of all places! Several people at my church know that I suffer from infertility. If I left the service while the baby was being dedicated, surely people could guess why. But if I remained in my pew then there’d be the inevitable glances at Marixsa: you know—the “barren one”—to see how I was “holding up.” Or at least that’s what my pride told me.

Somehow I managed to stay put through the ooohs and the awwws and the laughter that ensued when baby protested to our pastor carrying her around. My heart felt like it was being squeezed. I kept my gaze straight ahead and unsuccessfully fought back tears. In vain, I wrestled against the pangs of grief that my own babies never lived long enough to be dedicated, or even that anyone besides Jake and I know their names. Then I felt rotten for being so selfish during a special moment in the lives of my fellow parishioners.

And so it goes. Infertility’s reminders come during the places and times when we least expect it.

All day afterward something continued to gnaw at me, long after the baby dedication had ended. I finally figured out what it was: 35 looming large on the horizon. That—despite putting my best foot forward, remaining optimistic, and trusting that God will give us the desires of our heart—I’m struggling with this arbitrary line in the sand of my fertility.

By Sunday night I was full fledged upset about turning 35. Once that birthday happens, all the protocols change: my clinic would automatically transfer two embryos instead of one (though I don’t have any embryos anyway). I’d be an elderly primigravida in my doc’s notes and not just your run-of-the-mill primigravida. Any pregnancy I may achieve will be considered a geriatric pregnancy. Geriatric? Me? No way.

I plan to keep pressing on for now. But at the same time, I’m starting to slowly investigate the possibility of one day facing life as permanently childless/child-free/whathaveyou, which is something I’ve never been brave enough to face before. Which then begs the question: When do you stop trying?

It’ll be six years of TTC this June. It gets tiring. At what point does the anxiety of TTC and the putting things on hold “just in case I’m pregnant” get vanquished for good? When do I begin to plan for a future that will just be Jake and I? When do I accept what plans may be for my life?

On the other end, where does my faith come in to play? Faith: the substance of things hoped for, the evidenceof thingsnotseen. Isn’t that precisely what this situation calls for? Believing in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary? I’m either all in or not in at all. I want to be all in, in faith.

If that means continuing to make baby faith purchases along the way, then I’ll open my wallet. If that means swallowing the hurt at baby dedications then I can do it, by focusing on the fact that it’s just not my turn…yet… but someday it will be. If that means continuing trying to conceive despite the odds, then hello temping and ovulation tests.

Not that it’s not still difficult in the meantime. Because it sure is! But nothing’s worth it if it’s easy… The hardest fought battles bring the sweetest victory… And so on.